“You’ll remember this fondly.”
“I won’t.” Ajax couldn’t forget soon enough.
“I thought you loved nature.”
“I love nature down there,” said Ajax pointing at the ground, “where nature belongs. I do not like green trees and zips. I do not like them on this trip. I do not like them in a harness. I do not like them as an artist. I do not like green trees and zips. I do not like them, Logan, you drip.”
“I’ll make us capes for next time,” said Logan. “We’ll fly.”
Ajax said, somberly, “There will be no next time.”
But she gamely climbed a net like a spider, tip-toed across rolling logs screaming the whole way, and finally finished the course.
“Okay,” she said when they arrived at terra firma.
Logan opened the car door. “Sit, baby. You were brave.”
“You were brave. All I did was try to impress my bf.”
Logan said, “I’m proud of you and duly impressed.”
“I love you even if I do think you’re an asshole. What else is there to do in these parts?” said Ajax. “Are we going back to the city?”
Logan said, “What did you do as a kid at your grandmom’s cottage? I grew up in Paris, remember?”
“We could play board games.”
“We have other games we can play.”
Ajax squeezed their hand. “You can chute down my ladder anytime.”
“I can’t even think of all the things I want to do with you. I want you beside me all the time.”
“Me too,” said Ajax quietly, gripping Logan’s hand. “I want that too.”
They made love after they pulled up to the dock again without going inside—hot, itchy sex in the baking sunshine. Elliot and Joe could certainly see them, if they were looking, and this excited Ajax, and Logan’s cock excited Ajax, and she gripped at Logan’s ass, pulling them deeper, while in the trees, a raccoon mom and her kits wildly chirred, and inside Ajax pleasure percussed.
But a few minutes into it, Ajax had a suspicious feeling she was being punctured. A few more seconds and she shrieked for Logan to stop.
Logan laughed when Ajax stood up and showed them a bum full of splinters.
“Oww, oww, oww,” said Ajax.
Logan flipped Ajax over the arm of the couch and picked out dock slivers.
“Fuck!” Ajax kept hollering. “That hurts, Logan, goddammit. Go easy.”
“And it seemed like such a good idea at the time,” said Logan. “How is it you didn’t even notice, for christ’s sake; you’ve got half the dock up your might-I-note-bruised bum.”
Ajax stuck out her tongue. “You’re on the bottom next time we do that, asshole.”
“I was so not up your asshole, sweetheart. Hold tight. Don’t wriggle. Maybe we should be thinking clinic, although, geez, you really are black and blue. That’s making it worse because your tissues are swollen.”
“Oww! No! No clinics.”
“Well, Polysporin at least.” Logan plucked, Ajax squealed, and Logan said, “This is going to be one of those relationship stories. Those remember when you got slivers all up your bum stories.”
Finally Logan let her up, slathered in ointment with a warning not to rub. Ajax pulled on a robe. “Fucked and plucked,” said Ajax. “Kinda humiliating.”
“That’s not what you said about being over the arm of the couch the other night.”
“Va te faire fotre. And your horse.” The room smelled of oranges.
“My bride over the sofa arm … nah-uh. It’s going in the scrapbook.”
“I keep the scrapbook, goddamnit.” Then she realized what Logan had just said. “What did you just call me?”
Logan went down on one knee, pulled something out of their pocket, a ring box, square, navy velvet.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ajax said. “On bended knee? Get the fuck up. Get goddamn up, Logan. Do not do this.” But Ajax was starting to laugh and cry at the same time, and when Logan handed her the box, she sobbed. She could see herself as if from the outside being proposed to in this stereotypical way—a log cabin, for christ’s sake, French country chic, the beloved down on one knee—and it was goofy and absurd and her ass hurt a lot, the pain radiating down her thighs, but still, it was somehow perfect, somehow perfectly timed, and she knew that even though she was surely red-faced with embarrassment and pleasure—along with purple-bottomed—she was also full of love, the right kind of love, and a sense of safety and release.
“I want to marry you. Will you do me the honour of being my wife?”
Ajax opened the box.
JOE
Murderous dream of Dree attacking her, flailing arms and thuds. Tossing, sleeping, waking in a half-scream to Scout yowling. Joe stuck her nipple in the baby’s mouth, but it wasn’t enough; she fumbled a diaper change in the dark while Elliot snored obliviously.
Elliot threw her arm, glancing off Joe’s face. Joe fretted anew about co-sleeping. She stared at the moon out the skylight as the baby suckled, baby-belly-round itself and as uncaring as dust. Jupiter hovered close to the moon, a sparkling engagement ring.
When Scout dropped off, Joe used the bathroom to change pads, slipped out of her sweaty bra and Jockeys, and had a shower. She imagined what Dree must have thought as her car went off the road. Dree’d had car accident after car accident when they were together; she went through cars like other people went through lovers. Not surprising a car wreck was how she’d die. When she was suicidal she threatened to slam her car into a brick wall, and Joe’d always wondered if her accidents had been dry runs.
Joe stared at the moon, missing Dree, loving Dree. She had angled after forgiveness for most of her years with Elliot but had not quite attained it. To get it now, when it was too late to communicate it, seemed faintly self-indulgent.
Nights, which had once been bastions of sensual pleasures—clean sheets, sex, tender spooning—were now feats of endurance. Five-thirty a.m. and Elliot woke slowly beside Joe as the baby did, opening doe eyes and blinking.
“Good morning,” Elliot said, frowning. Even teeth, the middle two longer. The privileged childhood of private schools and perfect dentistry always on display. Two long lines of worry between her eyebrows. “What time is it?”
“You slept through the racket,” said Joe.
“Raccoons?” Ell shut her eyes.
“Scout crying.” She pulled the baby onto her breast. Scout smelled like poop. “She needs a change, Elliot.”
“I didn’t hear a thing.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Piqued, Joe added, “Change her, ’kay?” She hated herself for making it a question.
“It’s too early to get up.” Ell rubbed sleep from her eyes, sighed.
Joe stripped Scout’s onesie.
“Do you have to do that here? Can’t you go in the washroom?” Elliot cracked one eye at Joe. “It’s too freaking early and my stomach is still not behaving itself.”
“Your sleep is not more important than mine. Change your daughter.”
No one was sleepy after that.
Elliot was silent, then said a thin, “It’s not even morning yet, Joe. Jaysus. You’ve got this. You’re just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.”
An asshole? Did you just call me an asshole? “Did I have a break? Who did the midnight feeding? Oh yeah, me. Who did the three a.m.? Oh yeah, me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if I can do this all myself—I don’t want to, I shouldn’t have to, and it traumatizes the heck out of me that you’re not more interested.”
Elliot took the baby. “Fi-ine,” she said, the word elongated, the tone suffering. “Pass me the stuff then. If you want to take a chance on the baby catching this.”
“Get your own damned supplies,” Joe said and carefully made her way back downstairs into the spare room. She was shaking as she sat on the edge of the still-made bed.
The baby wailed, and Elliot came to the railing and yelled out, “Do you think it’s possible you’r
e just upset about Dree?”
Joe stood at the door to the spare room. “Don’t try to make this about me, Elliot. As for Dree, she died, Elliot, for fuck’s sake, what is it that escapes you about that? Dree died.” She steamed. “What this is about is you being a pig!” She slammed the door and threw herself on the bed sobbing.
Elliot slammed the door upstairs.
Sometime later, Elliot tucked clean, sweet-smelling Scout into the guest bed and crawled in after her. While Scout ate, Elliot stroked her hair and trilled at her. “My little scoogly-woogly. My very own bitty baby. Does MaPa love her? MaPa is crazy about her girl.” When the baby drifted off, so conked out that a lifted arm just dropped, Elliot transferred her to the cradle.
She climbed back in bed with Joe and drew her in close, murmuring apologies.
“Me too,” said Joe, her back naked against Elliot’s chest. She already felt contrite. It was not true that Elliot didn’t like Scout; what a ridiculous, unsupportable thought. “Me too. So sorry.”
They often made up like this, with a snuggle or sex or both, but no resolution.
It felt awkward and strange after so much baby-care for Joe to be near an adult whose body she knew so well it was truly an extension of hers. Joe felt her own clit twitch, unbidden, and then—she could have scripted this—the wide gulch of pain that yawned right afterward. Ell drew her bottom lip into her mouth, a sign of arousal that aroused Joe more; she thought ruefully of the things they used to do that they would miss now, as parents of a tiny one, things involving hooks and swings and door apparatuses.
Elliot ran her hands across Joe’s breasts, whispering, “Gads, your tits feel amazing.” The stroking made them let-down again and Ell squealed as they water-cannoned across her. “Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Elliot pulled away, Joe mashed her hands on her breasts, but the milk still bubbled and dripped. Finally she took a nipple between her fingers and squirted Elliot on purpose. Ell shrieked and Joe laughed and Elliot laughed and they half-ran (Elliot), half-hobbled (Joe) through the house with Joe’s spigot shooting a good ten feet.
“You’re a nut bar,” said Elliot, wiping off with a dish towel. “I’m all sticky, you maniac. I can’t believe how crazy you are.”
“Can I touch you, Ell? Can I fuck you?”
Elliot sobered and nodded.
And now Joe found what she could do—she could give. She could let her fingers travel across Elliot the way she knew her wife loved to be touched, the way that, over years, she had learned to bring her off—quickly if she wanted, or slowly if she wanted that. The fool-proof way. She could whisper kisses across her neck, nibble her ear lobe. Bite her lips. The nipple rubs, fingers barely grazing skin, wetting her clit, rubbing it the way she most liked. By having Ell twist sideways, Joe could touch her clit and enter her without compromising her own stitches. Elliot was wet and her cunt was ridged and soft and went hard and tight against her fingers. Joe had a two-way strap-free strap-on she would love to use. She could think of it, dream about it, imagine it was in both of them now, and almost—almost—ignore her continual pain. Elliot was hot inside, her cunt pulling at Joe to go deeper, to fuck her harder and faster. Then she belled, inflating.
Out the window, Joe saw Logan and Ajax gliding by in a red canoe.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Elliot said over and over. “That’s it, yes, that, don’t stop, don’t stop.” And finally, around Joe’s fingers, she orgasmed, her cunt in waves and spasms.
After sex, everything seemed a little brighter—breakfast on the deck while Scout dozed in a rush basket, and Joe found she could sit, actually sit, without fidgeting or wincing from pain, albeit on a pillow, dipping toast into eggs and admiring the monarchs whisking through the flowers. She even tried a cup of coffee half-shot with decaf, although she knew it could keep the baby up through the night. It was going to be a scorcher; already, at ten a.m., the sun burned her bare toes. Bees lazily bounced up from the Ilse Krohn roses like slow yellow popcorn.
The quivering aspens shook lime-green leaves against the sky and made rustling music. Hummingbirds buzzed the feeder in territorial circles, angrily chasing off competitors. A blue jay landed on the railing to snatch a peanut in the shell Elliot had scattered. A monarch caterpillar inched across the porch railing, yellow, white, and black.
Joe felt much better. Much, much, much improved. Even without an orgasm. Just because Elliot had made her feel special.
Ell pointed out Logan and Ajax canoeing past and waved. “I wonder if Ajax said yes. She must have said yes. Who could say no to Logan?”
“Even you said yes to Logan once.”
“They got down on their knees in this very living room and popped the question, but I was already leaving them then, and they knew it, and it was just a last-ditch effort to keep me with them. I don’t suppose they really wanted to marry me. Queers couldn’t get married then anyhow, not legally.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea, Ajax marrying Logan?”
Ell shrugged. “Can’t say, really. Most stuff between a couple, it happens out of sight. It’s entirely private.”
“For both their sakes, I hope it’s good, and lasting.”
“Logan’s really in love,” said Elliot.
“Wasn’t Logan in love with you too?”
“Sure, but we were poly. There were always other people in the picture. Even after we moved in together, we had separate bedrooms because other women were coming and going.”
Joe sighed in the sunshine. She felt warm, relaxed, safe. “Okay, but you loved each other.”
“We loved each other. I still love Logan. Logan is easy to love, for me, but they’re hard going for most other people. People like Logan in small doses. Even I like them in small doses.”
Joe tried her hardest not to think of Logan, not to remember that long-ago fucking. “It’s nice out here. Getting back into bed with you was a good idea.” She waited a second. “So there’s this thing, Ell. Can you sit down a minute? I kinda woke up thinking I should go to Dree’s funeral.”
“In BC!” Elliot dropped into a chair, legs spread wide, coffee cup balanced on the armrest.
“I’d like it if you could take me.”
Elliot stared at the garden. “Getting back to the city, followed by a five-hour flight west, a hotel in Vancouver, a bus ride, a ferry ride.”
Joe willed Elliot to understand, but the last thing she wanted was to instigate a fight. “Dree was the love of my life for a lot of years. I’d like to honour that.”
Ell said, “I hated that woman.”
“She didn’t mean less to me because she was a scoundrel.”
“I hated how she hurt you. She treated you like ass, Joe.”
Joe thought of the fun she’d had with Dree, their jokes and laughter. She thought of how every summer day after work they’d hike down to the nearby lake and toss themselves in the water, and how Dree was always frightened there would be—something, monsters?—about to pull her under, and how she needed to be in a tube just to make herself stay put, and how the neighbourhood kids would exalt in dunking her. One night, Joe and Dree pulled their car up to the dock in fog, leaving the car lights running, and flew down the dock with their towels whipping behind them, shouting “Geronimo!” as they heaved themselves into sheer blackness. She remembered the surprise bio-luminescence, drawing in sparkling blues across Dree’s back, kissing her fluorescent lips. Dree had acquired a cockatiel; they named him Faulkner, kept his wings clipped, let him flutter around the house when the cats were shut up in a bedroom. He had cavorted on Joe’s shoulder, craning to clean her teeth.
“She was with someone, you know,” Joe told Elliot, “after I left her. I can’t imagine putting up with Dree for a week, a day, but, you know, she found someone who tolerated her antics”
Joe had wanted to take Faulkner when she left Nanaimo, even thought of suing for custody, except that it was the bad old days when queers weren’t enfranchised to share property. Dree wouldn’t let her—the cockatiel was nominally hers�
��and two years later, she heard, Dree left Faulkner’s cage open at the same time as the front door, and the bird was crushed by a truck.
Not that Dree had told her. Linda had told her, much later.
How could Joe tell Elliot just how impassioned and full her life with Dree had been? How to say all the small accumulated things that make up a young life? She’d gotten her mechanic’s ticket during that relationship.
Joe pushed her plate away. “It’s not that Dree treated me well,” said Joe. “It’s that we still had a life together. Something we built as an ensemble. It was ours, you know, we made up its content and edges. We lived in it. Like you and I own this, all its benefits and flaws and complexities. Scout.”
Elliot said, “Uh.” Squirmed in her seat. “There’s something I’ve been postponing telling you. There’s something I need to say. I don’t really know how to tell you.” She looked at her lap, her face flushing, refused to meet Joe’s eyes.
“Dear god, girl, you can’t go that far and just stop.” Joe laughed.
“Okay, okay. The thing is … I can see this so clearly now with you saying you need to go to Dree’s funeral. Joe, what I need to say is that—”
Joe dragged her finger through the remnants of egg yolk and licked it. She felt a titch of rising excitement. I want to sell the cottage. I want us to move out west. I want us to go to Paris for a year. “What? What?”
Ell looked briefly up. “I want to—you know. Stop.”
Joe looked at Ell, the corrugations in her forehead, the dropped eyes, the slashed runnels between her eyebrows. “Stop what?”
Elliot drummed her fingers, said, “I want to stop. That’s it. I want to stop.”
“Stop,” said Joe. And now she too frowned. Regarded Elliot sitting in a simmer of—of what? A simmer of something. Now her excitement had turned to dread. “I’m not getting something here. What am I missing, Elliot?”
“I’m, ah …” Elliot knocked her fist on her leg.
“What are you trying to say to me? Would you please say it directly?”
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